Start Again
by strawberryfinn
Summary: Blaine's past is a lot darker than he's admitting to Kurt. Blaine's story before he transferred to Dalton Academy. Mentions of self-harm, abuse, bullying
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note**: So _Glee _premieres in around an hour and I AM SO EXCITED! This idea has been tugging at my imagination for awhile so I decided to give it a try. It was supposed to be a one-shot but I'm not really sure how to go with it and it was getting pretty long so I decided just to post this and see what you guys think. Plus I can't concentrate because _Glee _is premiering! :)

**Summary**: Blaine's past is a lot darker than he's admitting to Kurt. Blaine's story before he transferred to Dalton Academy.

**Genre**: Angst/Drama

**Rating**: T (for now)

**Warnings**: possible self-harm, violence, abuse, language

* * *

><p><strong>START AGAIN<strong>

* * *

><p>Blaine Anderson is thirteen years old when he gets his first kiss. The girl's name is Shelley Jenkins and he's at her thirteenth birthday party—the year when boys and girls suddenly stopped having cooties and inviting members of the opposite sex to parties was <em>cool. <em>

He knows that Shelley has had a huge crush on him for a long time (a long time at this point in his life was for a few weeks or so) from the way she bats her crystal blue eyes furiously at him and stands up taller around him and wears her extra tight Limited Too t-shirts and short skirts, and that his best friend Patrick (who has been his best friend since third grade) has told him, "Shelley is totally hot, so you should go for it." To be quite honest, Blaine feels uncomfortable with the whole situation, but he doesn't really have a choice.

It's Shelley's thirteenth birthday and she's invited six boys and five girls, which comes out to an even twelve. Her parents are downstairs talking with family, and Shelley has ushered all of her guests into her room where they've all awkwardly arranged themselves into a lopsided circle when Sheila Montgomery suggests that they play Seven Minutes in Heaven.

Blaine's never played Seven Minutes in Heaven and he's confused on the concept of what he's supposed to do, but everybody (Blaine included) knows that the birthday girl has been harboring feelings for Blaine, and so Blaine finds himself in a dark closet with Shelley.

The fabric of the bottom of Shelley's dress is over his Blaine's knee and a pair of wedged sandals on the floor of her closet is under his butt and it's un_bear_ably hot since his mother told him he needed to wear his suit, but he feels Shelley edge even closer to him.

"Well," she says slightly impatiently, after they've been sitting awkwardly for the first minute without saying anything. She bats her eyelashes suggestively at him—her eyes are ringed haphazardly with blue eyeshadow and thick mascara the way a thirteen year-old usually applies makeup and he knows that Patrick would find this attractive but Blaine is just reminded of the sad clown he saw at the circus when he was eight. "Aren't you gonna do it?"

"Do what?" Blaine asks stupidly. He and feel the sweat trickling around the collar of his neck and his tie feels like it's cutting off his air supply and it's _too hot _in this dark, musty closet where he's with a girl he doesn't know too well but had to go to her birthday because his dad thought a gentleman should always accept an invitation from a lady and his mom is friends with Mrs. Jenkins.

"Kiss me, silly," Shelley flips her straight blonde hair behind her shoulder and giggles like she thinks he's the funniest thing in the world, but Blaine doesn't find anything funny.

He doesn't say that though.

Instead, he leans over awkwardly, his lips coming into close proximity with Shelley's and Shelley grabs his tie with as much force as a newly teenaged girl can muster and pulls him in.

The kiss is uncomfortable and weird and Blaine can feel the bile rising in his throat before Shelley breaks the kiss. He feels like he's drowning and alarms go off in his head screaming that this is wrong, and when Shelley finally releases his tie from her grasp and smiles shyly at him, he throws up all over her pretty pink shoes.

Shelley screams and her friends and parents come running and Blaine sits there, flushed maroon in embarrassment. He offers to clean up the vomit from Shelley's closet floor and apologizes profusely, saying that he doesn't feel well and maybe he should go home. He waits patiently for his ride, his heart thudding furiously in his chest and his cheeks flush with humiliation, and when his mom comes to pick him up, he tells her he wants to sleep and doesn't want to talk about it.

At home in his bed with practical grey sheets and a practical dark blue comforter, Blaine twists and turns and tries to forget how uncomfortable and wrong he felt in Shelley's closet—no, not the closet—but with _her. _He tries to forget the light print of Shelley's lips against his and tries to forget how hot it was and how she was breathing heavily and how her face was pink with delight. He tries to forget how her eyes closed as she kissed him and he tries to forget the slight curve of her newly developing chest and her long, slender legs.

But most of all, he tries to convince himself that he was really ill and that was the reason he threw up on her.

The next week, Patrick confronts Blaine at school and laughs at him until he nearly cries in mirth. Blaine flames red and tries to lie and tell Patrick he had food poisoning.

Also, to Blaine's great relief, Shelley decides that she no longer has a crush on him. She also doesn't invite Blaine to her birthday next year, and Blaine is fine with that.

* * *

><p>Blaine's freshman year at the local public high school in Cincinnati is uneventful. Patrick is still his best friend and though Blaine is unconventionally dapper and reserved, Patrick is loud, outgoing. Blaine's a little on the short side, but he starts to grow out of his awkward teenage limbs and Patrick's voice drops an octave over the summer. Blaine's unique good looks and Patrick's claim for authority throw them a little below but almost at the top of the social pyramid, so both of them have a lot friends that they don't know too well and live on superficial relationships.<p>

Blaine doesn't really like popularity too much, but it chose him and, just like when he was shoved into the closet with Shelley Jenkins, he doesn't really have a choice.

The first time Blaine wonders if something is different about him is when he's with Patrick, and Patrick is rattling on and on about the rack on Cassandra Sheavers and how he wonders what it would be like to touch her tits. Patrick goes into great detail about her round and firm ass and her totally sexy eyes, and Blaine just sits there and nods numbly as his best friend continues.

He starts wondering if maybe he should start looking for a new best friend, but he's known Patrick for so many years now, and he thinks it's just probably a phase of teenage boys. Which makes him wonder a little bit why he's not going through this phase, but he rolls with the status quo and what he's comfortable with and decides not to ask questions.

While the teenage boys in Blaine's grade look for the crease of girls' breasts when they're wearing low-cut shirts and stare at long, slender legs of scantily clad girls in short skirts, Blaine feels uncomfortable and tends to shift his eyes away. This is perceived as gentle and endearing to many of the girls, and so Blaine finds himself as the object of several girls' desires (Patrick has more crushes, of course. It seems as though the worse Patrick treats the opposite sex, the more they want him, which, to Blaine, makes no sense in the slightest). Blaine finds himself uncomfortable with all the attention but because of it, he's more popular and has more friends and superficial relationships, and he thinks superficial relationships might be better than none at all, so he doesn't say anything.

* * *

><p>Blaine's first girlfriend is a delicate, doe-eyed girl with a cascading waterfall of chocolate hair named Penelope Koulos.<p>

He meets Penelope in his English class his sophomore year of high school. She looks fragile, but is headstrong, bold, and he realizes that he wants to know her after she has a verbal battle with their teacher about the existence of love in _Romeo and Juliet._

Mrs. Watkins, the Honors English II teacher, is explaining to the class that the love Romeo and Juliet felt for each other was simply lust—after all, they had only known each other for a mere three days and were being fueled by a mutual attraction rather than love.

Blaine sees Penelop's pale, slightly freckled, slender arm raise before he sees Penelope herself. Mrs. Watkins looks surprised, but calls on her.

"Yes, Penelope?"

And then there is an answer from a light, airy voice, but one a passioned one.

"Mrs. Watkins, not to overstep, but have you ever been in love? Truly, madly, _deeply _in love, I mean. Because I believe that Romeo and Juliet were in love—you don't simply throw your reservations and passions to the wind because of lust. You may be young and stupid, but you don't kill yourself unless you're really in love. Unless you really feel something for the other person, and you may call me naïve but I believe what they had for each other was real on maybe a level that we're not capable of understanding, but a level that existed nonetheless."

Mrs. Watkins look bemused at the reply, probably not suspecting it from such a docile-looking girl, but cracks a smile. "Very good point, Miss Koulos. Anybody else have anything they want to add?"

And Blaine sneaks a look at Penelope out of the corner of his eyes, and she sees him looking and their eyes meet.

She winks at him.

Blaine is slightly abashed and frazzled. He folds his hands into his lap and spends the rest of the class looking at them, and at the end of class, as he methodically stuffs his books into his backpack, he feels a light touch on his shoulder.

"Hi there," comes Penelope's voice, and Blaine takes in her tumbles of hair, her wide eyes.

"Hi," he manages, offering his hand, "I'm Blaine. Blaine Anderson."

"I know," she says, taking his extended hand. "Penelope. Penelope Koulos."

"I know," Blaine stumbles, and then flames with embarrassment.

"You want to come over sometime?" Penelope offers next, overlooking his comment with a teasing smile.

And Blaine smiles back. Says "yes."

* * *

><p>Penelope's idea of "coming over" means a visit to her house, which Blaine is both confused and delighted about.<p>

Penelope's family is Greek and loud and boisterous, and they pull Blaine in and yell and scream and make him eat a bunch of exotic lamb and meet and kabob dishes that he's tried before with his parents, but never like _this. _The warmth of culture and the rush that comes as everybody yells and hugs him and presses kisses to his cheek is intoxicating, daring, so unlike what Blaine is used to with his composed, stiff, rigid environment at home. His own father stays hidden in gilded desks, dark inked pens, the haven of his office, and Penelope's dad is loud and openly affectionate, pulling Penelope close to him for a hug and a kiss.

Penelope seems to sense Blaine's discomfort and eventually (much to his relief), suggests that they get out of here. Blaine nods eagerly, and somehow they end up in Penelope's bedroom and she leans in and kisses him. It's his second kiss and he's fifteen and he's with a girl unlike him every possible way—she's opinionated, open, emotional; he's quiet, shy, introverted.

"Wow," she says breathlessly, "that was something."

"Yeah," he agrees, and it _is _something and he doesn't really know how he feels and he's pretty sure he doesn't feel the way she does, but his head is spinning a bit from all the rich food he's consumed and Penelope is really pretty so maybe, he forces himself to think, he really likes her.

They make it official about two weeks later.

Luckily for Blaine, Penelope stays his girlfriend and likes him for much longer than Shelley does.

* * *

><p>After Blaine and Penelope have been dating for half a year, Penelope casually suggests that they make their relationship a little more intimate and perhaps it's time to move to the next level. Blaine's mind starts racing with thoughts of—<em>holy crap she wants me to marry her, there is no way I'm ready for this—<em>and politely excuses himself. In the bathroom, he crumples against the door, knees brought to his chest, trying to control the incredible racing of his heart.

When he returns to Penelope, pressing a carefully measured kiss against her cheek, he apologizes and tells her he doesn't feel well and that he'll see her tomorrow.

It's only when he's back at home in his car parked in his own driveway that he realizes she was talking about sex.

* * *

><p>The second time Penelope hints at sex, Blaine is so freaked out that he stands for half an hour in his school bathroom, staring at himself in the mirror, wondering if he should kill himself. There's a pocketknife hidden in his backpack that Patrick gave him when they went camping, but Blaine doesn't know if it's sharp enough to even make him bleed and he doesn't know if he can do this and he doesn't know <em>why <em>he wants to do this. His mind lists briefly on cutting, but he doesn't understand the concept of hurting himself and he can't understand why it would make him feel better at all.

He's frustrated and alarmed and terrified beyond belief, but the main reason for him being so is that he cannot figure out, for the life of him, _why_. Of course Penelope wants to have sex. All normal, healthy, teenage couples should want to. And maybe Blaine was hoping to maybe wait until he was married, or maybe wait for sometime in his life where he was more stable, or maybe waiting for someone who wasn't—isn't—_her._

And as he racks his brain for a thought of _anyone _he could want, anyone he might be attracted more than to her, he draws blank after blank after blank, until there's the flush of a toilet and _he _comes out.

Blaine doesn't know Doren Cassallos in person, but he knows _of _him, of course. Everyone knows Doren. Doren, with his, golden shock of hair and slightly freckled cheeks and fragile, almost feminine facial structure. Doren with his wide hazel eyes and his slender fingers. But of course, all of these facts become obsolete when you know the truth. All of this become unimportant details when you take into account the one thing that _everyone _in the school knows about him: Doren Cassallos is _gay_.

Blaine has never thought about gay people very much. It has never been very relevant to his life—after all, he doesn't know any gay people, except for Doren, of course, but he doesn't really know Doren at all. Doren is in his PreCalculus class, but the only time he's actually talked to the other boy is when they stood next to each other in line for the pencil sharpener and Blaine accidentally bumped into him and said, "Sorry," and Doren flashed a quick, appreciative, but timid smile and murmured, "No worries."

Then Blaine went back to his seat where Tyler, one of the guys who is Patrick's friends but not really Blaine's at all, but kind of Blaine's by association, hissed, "Did the faggot touch you?" and a bunch of the guys laughed and Blaine saw Doren flinch with pain, but Blaine didn't say anything because he's not very confrontational and he doesn't know Doren anyways. But he didn't laugh; he just sat there in his seat and did his PreCalculus worksheet because Blaine has been raised to do what he's supposed to do.

But now they're in the bathroom and Blaine is wiping tears of anxiety from his eyes and shaking visibly in front of the bathroom mirror and Doren places a steady hand over Blaine's, the way that Penelope might.

"Hey," he says simply, "you alright?"

And Blaine nods, even though he's not alright at all, and everything is messed up beyond belief and he's confused out of his mind. But he nods, and Doren's hand over his is comforting and gives him chills and spikes up and down his arm.

Doren stands there for about a minute, just with his hand over Blaine's, his calm eyes boring holes into Blaine's face, but Blaine doesn't find it creepy at all. Just reassuring.

When Doren leaves, Blaine looks down at his arm where the hairs are raised amidst goosebumps.

He doesn't even have to take out his pocketknife.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note<strong>: And abrupt end to Part One. I'm really sorry about this; I didn't quite know how to end with it. But what do you guys think so far? I know there's a lot of OCs but I don't know how to do it otherwise. We should get into familiar territory at some point. Poor, confused Blainey :(

I would love reviews, especially if you'd like me to update this!

-sf


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note**: Thank you so much for all the feedback! I finally got around to updating this; it's actually been pretty difficult to write!

**Summary**: Blaine's past is a lot darker than he's admitting to Kurt. Blaine's story before he transferred to Dalton Academy.

**Genre**: Angst/Drama

**Rating**: T (for now)

**Warnings**: possible self-harm, violence, abuse, language

* * *

><p><strong>START AGAIN<strong>

* * *

><p>When Blaine goes home that day, he types "gay" into the Google search bar. He sorts through the links advertising porn with a visible wince, but reads the lengthy Wikipedia article throughly. Once. Twice. Opens up websites on gay literature. Compiles a list of books that his local library has on homosexuality. His heart races as his mouse lingers on several "Are you gay?" quizzes and LGBT information links, but he doesn't click any of them.<p>

And as he moves onto images, his breath catches in his throat. He scrolls through the glaring pictures of men and women in clearly sexual, explicitly "inappropriate" acts that make his face flush with embarrassment, but he ends up on one page of two men grasping each other almost desperately, one slender and small and the other more wiry and muscular, gently wrapped in an passioned kiss, their eyes closed and smiles at the edges of both or their mouths. He swallows hard and tries to fight the tears spiking at his eyes and his embarrassingly hardened arousal and the undeniable attraction he feels.

This can't be happening.

There's a noise from outside and he hears his mother call, "Blaine? Sweetheart?"

Hurriedly, Blaine stuffs the list of books into his pocket and opens his email in a new window on his computer screen.

After greeting his mother and helping her unload the groceries from her car, he returns to his computer. He clears his browser history, just in case.

The next day Blaine goes to the local library and checks out all the books on his list.

The librarian gives him a disdainful look, and he tries to forget her eyes boring deep into his and the way she purses her lips as she clearly judges him.

He tells her it's for a school project. He's pretty sure she doesn't believe him, and her suspicion makes the hairs on the back of his neck rise.

This can't be right.

* * *

><p>Blaine hides the books haphazardly in his closet, in old shoeboxes, in his underwear drawer, underneath his jackets. On a second thought, he realizes that his mother will wonder why he's suddenly become messy, and he picks his jackets up off the floor. Crams the books behind the boards of his closet, deep inside his backpack, and leaves the ones in his shoeboxes and underwear drawer alone.<p>

He takes out a hardcover book hesitantly, and flips open to the first chapter. The big title is "ARE YOU CONFUSED?" and he starts shaking and almost closes the book right then and there.

But instead, he digs deep down and searches for some courage, and decides to start reading. He finishes the first book in less than an hour. He moves onto the next and the one after, and after he's devoured three of them in a row, he closes them and hides them in his sock drawer, clambers onto his bed and pulls his covers over him. His heart is beating wildly and he remembers the feeling of Doren's hand on his and the spark that it sent through him and tears are pricking at his eyes and before he knows it he's crying, desperate muffled sobs because this cannot _happen_to him. He's an Anderson, he's expected to hold up the family name, he's masculine and refined and successful like his father, he _can't_be...

It's probably just a phase, right? It's just a phase. He's just confused and he'll grow out of it, he tells himself, none of this is real. He'll be fine. Just watch, he'll see Penelope tomorrow and she is beautiful everything and he will see that and everything will go back to normal.

* * *

><p>His desire to prove himself as normal doesn't carry over into his actions and he doesn't understand it.<p>

Blaine doesn't pick up his phone or answer his texts for a whole week. At school, he tells Penelope that his parents grounded him for talking back and took his phone away, and somewhat suspiciously, she buys it. She doesn't press the issue too much. He makes a conscious effort to avoid sitting by her at lunch, claiming that he has a lot of tests to study for. This is a blatant lie; Blaine has never struggled in school in his life.

But...

He doesn't know what to do. Maybe he's just afraid that when he sees her again, he'll realize he's wrong.

* * *

><p>Penelope approaches Blaine at school and asks if there's something wrong. She points out that they haven't spent one-on-one time for two weeks and she's worried and wants to talk about their relationship and Blaine really can't get around it. He mumbles something about having a big science presentation and tells her he's sorry but that of course nothing's wrong and he misses her. She squeezes his hand and tells him it's okay and asks if he wants to come over on Saturday night, suggestively slipping in that her parents won't be home.<p>

Blaine feels nauseous, but he's a gentleman and in spite of recent self-revelations, he's still Penelope's boyfriend, so he says yes.

* * *

><p>He arrives at Penelope's house at six, a bouquet of lilies in his trembling hands because those are her favorite flowers. She opens the door, her eyes bright and excited, her tumble of hair flowing out around her, and she thanks him and presses a small kiss to his lips.<p>

Inside, she carefully assembles the lilies into a glass vase, offers him some water. He politely refuses, clapping his hands nervously at his sides, and she grins wolfishly at him and tells him she knows what he's waiting for. She grabs him by the hand and drags him up to her room and shuts the door behind her and pulls him onto her bed.

And then there are Penelope's hands on the clasp of his pants, and Blaine starts to hyperventilate. He strains and thrives to keep his breath steady and almost forcefully pushes her away.

"Can we just _not_?" he manages breathlessly, his throat closing around his words. He can hear himself start to choke up and all he can think is _No,__not__right__now.__This__is__all__wrong._

"Okay," Penelope says simply, letting go of his pants. Blaine knows she's frustrated, even though she's trying to hide it, when she pushes her hand through her silky brown hair and her forehead lines with distress. "What's wrong, Blaine? Am I doing something wrong?" Her voice is sad and self-accusatory and Blaine hurts so much because this is wrong. He doesn't want to hurt _her._

Blaine buries his head in his hands, the words _I__think__I__might__be__gay_fading on his lips. Instead, he manages to mutter, "I don't think I can do this anymore."

Penelope cocks her head, her lashes dark and prominent and framing her huge brown eyes. A few freckles dot her pale face. Her lip trembles a little, but she looks at him resolutely, impassive.

"When did you know?" she asks him, her voice softening towards the end of her question. Gentle.

And Blaine realizes that she knows.

"I'm sorry," he answers in a broken voice instead of answering her question, but she looks at him. Takes his hand.

"No, I'm sorry," Penelope whispers, an apology on her lips. She squeezes his hand, and the dam bursts and the tears come and he's clinging onto her like a child because he is so, so _scared_and this is all _wrong_and he doesn't know what to do. He sobs openly, brokenly into her shoulder, and he feels her hands wrap protectively around him.

"It's okay," she shushes, rubbing smooth circles on his back. "It's okay," she croons and holds him as he cries to the point where his eyes will feel swollen and he'll be sleepy the next day.

And, sitting there with the girl who he loves but never really _loved_at all, his head buried into her soft blouse, Blaine tries to convince himself, in that moment, that it'll be okay. That _it's__okay_.

It's okay.

It's okay.

* * *

><p>He doesn't love Penelope, at least in <em>that<em>way. Blaine realizes he fell in love with her voice, in love with her mind, in love with her passions. But he's not physically attracted to her, not _sexually_attracted to her. He loves her as a friend, as a confidant... just not as a _lover._

* * *

><p>The news that he and Penelope have broken up spreads faster than Blaine thinks possible, and the unfortunate thing for him is that he's propositioned right and left by desperate girls who feel like going to a high school dance alone is the end of the world. At his school, a girl who goes single to the Sadie Hawkins is a red flag for someone who wasn't cool or popular or pretty enough for a boy to say yes to. The upcoming dance is a Sadie Hawkins, which means the girls asks the boys, and since he's readily single and still looks dapper and well-dressed and is rich without being condescending and attractive and intelligent, the overeager girls of his high school are ready to pounce.<p>

Blaine has declined three girls, who roll their eyes and declare that they didn't want to go to the dance with him _anyways,_and he's getting a reputation as an unstable heartbreaker, when he starts to think he's had _enough._

Penelope suggests they could just go as friends, if he'd like, but he knows that it would hurt her, and he can't bring himself to hurt her any more than he already has, so he politely declines and tells her that she should go with Jeremy Hyde, since he's nice and sweet and single and has asked her. (Blaine knows that Jeremy will no doubt be Penelope's rebound but he doesn't have the right to say anything since he broke her heart). Penelope looks worried, but he can also see the relief, so he's happy he's let her know that she doesn't have to take care of him anymore.

To be honest, Blaine has been eyeing Doren. Doren Cassallos with his hair spun of gold and his pale, effeminate features and the fact that he's _gay_and Blaine is trying to wrap his mind around the fact that he's finding a male beautiful. The fact that he can't take his eyes off the small dash of freckles on the bridge of Doren's nose and his wide, almost doe-like eyes that are reminiscent of Penelope's. There's something so inherently forbidden about the whole thing, and Blaine finds himself slipping Doren a note during English class.

_Doren,_

_Can we talk?_

_-Blaine_

He gets a reply as Doren subtly slips him a yellow post-it at the end of class.

_Meet me at the bleachers after school. 3:30._

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note<strong>: Sorry this chapter was so short guys, but it should start getting juicy next chapter! I just want to do justice to Blaine's coming out process so it may not be moving as quickly as originally intended. Please leave a review if you'd like to see an update!

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-sf


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